ABSTRACT
Building on Mikhail Bakhtin’s thought and advancements thereof in cultural studies, this chapter brings Bakhtin’s seminal concept of the carnivalesque to bear on critical IR theorisations of violence, power and security. Conceived as an ontology of resistance beyond forms aesthetically reminiscent of carnival, the carnivalesque helps detect and locate ever-shifting sites and modes of resistance to the closure of the political. Unlike intellectually-driven deconstruction, the category allows zooming into deconstructions as performed anthropological acts, by the very subjects of security. The peace campaign by Brian Haw and Barbara Tucker carnivalising ‘war on terror’ serves to illustrate and further this approach.
